


fathers and daughters (fathers and sons)

by JewFlexive



Series: blue skies and sunshine (aren't guaranteed) [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: F/M, Fatherhood, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, POV Beast (Disney), Past Child Abuse, can alter somebody's perceptions, cannot hope to understand, in ways another person, sometimes trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 09:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17701535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JewFlexive/pseuds/JewFlexive
Summary: Adam doesn't understand why this girl would sacrifice herself for the man locked away in a the cell next to her. That old man is her father, and Adam knows better than anyone that fathers will always, always fail their children.





	fathers and daughters (fathers and sons)

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as a stand alone one-shot. But some references in the text are only going to be found in the upcoming parent work (which is still very unfinished). A cheat sheet can be found in the end notes. Enjoy!

The hardest thing for Adam to understand is that she actually thinks her father’s life is in danger. Which, Adam concedes, she may be right in thinking. The master of a strange, dilapidated castle in the middle of nowhere does not a trustworthy source make. But Adam wasn’t planning on killing the man, far from it. He is not a murderer. He possesses enough self-awareness after all these years to know that he is selfish and petty and prone to bursts of rage, but he is not a killer. He had simply thought that a few nights in a cell would be the most effective way of convincing the man to stay silent about the castle.

Admittedly, it was most likely not his best plan. But the man was old– Adam had assumed that any children he’d had would have their own families by now, would not have been so apt to follow him into the forest due to their own obligations. How was Adam supposed to know that the man had a whole rescue mission available to him?

This complicates things. Adam is not good at complicated things, has always been more inclined to slice through a stubborn knot instead of untangling it. Now there are two people with access to the castle, two people who have the power to ruin Adam and his household with a few pitchforks and a well-placed rumor.

New plan: intimidate them both into silence?

No, Adam decides, studying the girl before him. Even in the shadows with her face barely visible from his perch, the girl _burns_. She’s a thunderstorm and a wildfire and a hurricane all wrapped up into a tiny frame that all but quivers with pent-up energy, and he can see that she will not be so easily cowed. This one has a sense of justice, and she feels she has been wronged. Attempting to frighten her will not end well for him or his servants.

Well. That does not mean Adam can’t try.

She doesn’t see him coming as she grabs her, and her terror at his swift action is palpable, even as he makes certain he has retracted his claws and is using only the amount of force necessary to get the job done. The torch she is carrying clammers onto the floor, sizzling as it hits the puddle of water at their feet.

“What are you doing here?” he asks her, letting rage drench his tone, and despite his best efforts his voice is distinctly animalistic. It does the job: her eyes widen almost comically, and if Adam wasn’t just as terrified, he might laugh at how they seem to take up all of her face. But this exchange means more for him than it does for her, so he keeps the thought to himself. He doubts it would be beneficial for either of them.

The man snivels and begs his daughter ( _Belle_ , he calls her, the name striking something deep in Adam so that he almost doubles over from the force of it) to run, and Adam hates him with a fire he hasn’t felt in years. He hates this old man, the man who disrupted Adam’s carefully cultivated days and nights with his intrusion, who has forced Adam to begin _thinking_ again. This man pretends so well. Telling his daughter ( _Belle_ ) to run, to save herself, that he wants her to leave him. Adam remembers Prince Nicolau’s father and has to suppress a shudder.

Adam’s rage though, is tempered by his shock. The girl ( _Belle_ , his mind supplies again, and Adam wants to bang his head against the wall) stands her ground, asks who he is with such strength that he forgets to refuse to answer. He’s lucky he doesn’t give her his name, his title, his entire life story, but he retains enough of his wits to give her a simple answer, one that sounds almost innocuous.

_Master of this castle._

He is not Crown Prince Hercule-Adam of the Arberessi Empire, Duke of Chèver and Protector of the Northern Border. He is _master of this castle_ , and he wishes he could cry. But his form does not allow it, and this situation does not allow it, and his father taught him well. He transforms pain into anger on instinct, a master alchemist, and makes it his armour.

“I’ve come for my father,” she tells him, her voice clear despite the fact it is trembling. She is begging him, of course, but somehow her bravado manages to make Adam feel like the supplicant.  “Please let him out, can’t you see he’s sick?”

“Then he shouldn’t have trespassed here,” Adam retorts angrily, though this time he’s more angry at himself. Of course the dungeons would make this old man ill–– the only reason Adam himself has not died from chills a hundred times over in these past nine years is because the Enchantress refuses to forgive an eleven-year-old boy his tantrums and is forcing Adam to plod through each day of the first ten years and most likely the rest of his life. But not all bodies are magically fortified. _I_ , Adam muses in a far-off corner of his mind, one not very much concerned with the state of his (actually very well thought out, thank you, Cogsworth) plan. _Am a monumental idiot_.

“But he could die,” the girl Belle pleads with him, almost wretched, and Adam wants to tell her to just leave while she can, even to take her dratted father with her. He almost wants to warn her, to let her know that her father will prove unworthy of her in due time. He wants to tell her truths that no one told him, no one except for King Ederic, and by then it was too late. Adam pities her, pities this girl who would travel into a dense, hostile forest for her father of all people.

(There are three indisputables in this world, Adam’s tutor told him once. Family, God, and Country. But Adam’s tutor was simply Étienne’s mouthpiece, so Adam long ago substituted his own indisputibles in place of the shit Professeur Auguste spewed.

One, he would tell her: the world owes you nothing that you have not earned. The universe could not care less who your parents are, what your situation may be, the trials you may face–– princes die of plague just as the peasants do. It is only by virtue of power, of _earning_ power, that you can hope to protect yourself and those you love. Life is not merciful, ergo neither should you be.

Two, he would continue: Rely only on yourself. The only things you can know for certain, can depend on indisputably, are the things you know about yourself. You are the only person who cannot leave yourself, who cannot disappoint. Do not allow someone you wrongfully trusted spell out your ruin.

Three, the most important: Fathers will fail you. You exist to be an extension of themselves, to inherit what they never wish to lose. They will hate you for being like them and despise you for being different. If they cannot break you with words, they will break you with their fists, their belt, and, in Adam’s case, a blade. They want you weak and utterly compliant so that they may become you, live on from their own graves. Run from your father, escape him as soon as you possibly can. Run, Belle, run!)

Adam opens his mouth, focusing harder on softening his town and ameliorating the gutteral sounds lurking in his throat. She says she’d do anything, and Adam refutes that easily, insisting that the man must stay, his mind still whirling with possible ways to defuse the situation that has gotten so out of control. But then the girl continues, desperation finally creeping into her words.

“Take me instead.”

Adam stops cold. The man wails, and a part of Adam almost regrets his moment of humanity. Maybe he should have been the monster and killed his prisoner. At least then the incessant moaning would cease interrupting every damn moment. But the majority of Adam’s brainpower is focused on remembering the Enchantress’ words: _If you can learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal falls, the spell will be broken._

At eleven years old, it was a death sentence. Adam had met maybe three girls that his father had deemed suitable enough for Adam to marry and hadn’t liked any of them like that, and in hindsight, what did an eleven-year-old understand about love anyway? Even now, nearly twenty-one, Adam still has only the vaguest clue. He’d loved his mother, of course, but he barely remembered her, only knew she had had blue eyes like his own and a sweet smile.

But now Adam had a chance. He could free himself. He could free Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts and her grandchildren… He could free them all. All he had to do was take this girl up on her offer.

(Though, Adam muses, doing so would only cement in her mind that he _had_ planned on killing her father. Adam is no expert, but he doubts that that is a great way to begin a courtship.)

“Belle, no!” The man sobs. “You don’t know what you’re doing!”

For once, Adam agrees.

“You,” he grunts, reassessing his opponent for what feels like the tenth time. This girl is sharp and quick, and if Adam wasn’t so damn tired of the whole charade (if he wasn’t so damn terrified that everything was going to fall apart) he’d commend her on it. But the girl is also very obviously insane. “You would take his place?”

She loves her father, poor girl. But Adam has to admit, if the man is this good of an actor ill and in pain, he has no doubt that he has his pretty daughter wrapped around his finger. Adam is reeling, his disbelief roiling in his stomach. How can any one person be so blind?

“If I did,” she asks him carefully, and Adam can tell that she is more comfortable now, taking charge of the negotiations with ease that rivals the most seasoned diplomats from Gardenia. “Would you let him go?”

 _I was going to let him go regardless_ he wants to tell her, because he is realizing that she is aptly named, that her beauty is lighting this dingy hallway with a glow that Adam hasn’t seen in years. He likes her, he realizes sadly. He likes her clever eyes and the way she grasped her father’s hand with such focused determination. He doesn’t want to be the monster, not to her.

But Adam is weak. And Adam is cursed, and his curse affects everyone in his castle. Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, and his older half-brother are all relying on him to fall in love and break the spell. Adam wants to refuse, wants to maintain even a shred of dignity. He will not blackmail a girl ( _Belle_ , a woman’s voice supplies) into staying in this hellhole.

He remembers, however, something Ederic told him long ago, when Adam was six and the world was still kind. _A true king rules despite his desires, not due to them._ He hadn’t understood the old man then, but he did now. Adam was the Crown Prince, for better or for worse, and he had a responsibility to try his best with the opportunities presented to him. Even if it failed, even if she ran screaming, he had to try. He owed his staff that, at least. And maybe he owed it to himself, too.

He tells her she has to promise to stay forever, though he knows it will be a promise broken, one way or another. He knows she will say yes, he can feel it in the air, but he detects doubt. Soon he knows why.

“Step into the light,” the girl says after a moment, her head held high, and Adam admires her more for it. Yet, Adam wants to run, he _needs_ to run. Instead, he recites Ederic’s advice over and over in his mind.

_I rule despite my desires_

He steps into the light peeking through the badly thatched roof, drawing himself up to his full height to best get the worst over with.

_Not due to them._

His heart shatters into tiny glass shards as she gasps and hurriedly hides her face from his monstrous form, foolishly turning to her aged father for protection. It’s almost funny, if Adam thinks on it. He didn’t reckon he’d had much heart left to break.

_I rule despite my desires_

Her father grovels once more, pleading with his daughter to reconsider, and despite the fact that Adam hates this stupid man with a passion he has not felt in years, he prays that for once, a father’s manipulations will result in good, not evil.

_Not due to them._

He has to. He has to take her word, to allow his staff (to allow himself) this one glimmer of hope before the end. There is no other choice.

“Done!” he agrees quickly, and moves past her to unlock the cell, hauling the old man out of it. He gives them five seconds, allows the girl ( _BELLE_ the woman in his head insists) a moment to see how utterly wretched this man who she calls _papa_ truly is.

She is about to cry when Adam leaves with her father, dragging the man out with him. As they walk through the castle, the man tries to argue, to compromise, and it becomes too much. Before they go outside, Adam turns to him, and without his daughter for Adam to consider, the man is not spared the terror Adam knows he can inspire if he tries.

“You think I’m a monster,” he notes, stopping their march. The man is silent and pale, and Adam almost sympathizes. This is the first time he has addressed the man so frankly. “Well, I assure you, sir, I am not so monstrous as you.”

The man sputters and Adam rolls his eyes.

“You are all the same,” he informs the old man, and he barely has any anger left. If Adam didn’t know any better, he’d say he sounds almost human. “Fathers willing to sacrifice children. Or willing to let them do it on their own. I would have sent you on your way in a few days even if you hadn’t even bothered to try and negotiate a release on your own, but you waited for your child to rescue you at the expense of her own future.”

“I didn’t know!”

“That girl worships you!” Adam bellows, and the man cowers, but this time Adam doesn’t care. He has had enough. When he talks to this man, Adam just wants it all to stop, for his world to go back to the frozen purgatory it used to be, hope be damned. “Even I can see it. You had to know what she’d try once she knew where you were. What she’d do!”

They are outside now, and Adam is thoroughly disgusted at this point, the man’s blatant manipulations too close to what Adam has escaped.

“She’s no longer your concern,” he tells the man before throwing him into a (well-padded and magically heated) carriage. It will take him back to the nearest village, and from there, the man can do whatever he wishes. Adam does not try to silence him about the castle, because the man is safe. What kind of father would try to mount a rescue mission against a beast? The thought makes Adam wants to smile at the insanity of it. But Adam is right. Belle is not this man’s concern, and he is sure that she will be better for it.  
  
“You didn’t even let me say goodbye,” she says to him when he returns, but Adam is not worried. When his father left him here in Bastion de la Saulogne, it took Adam months to realize what his father, what _a_ father was. She will understand soon, perhaps even thank Adam for all this. Nevertheless, he doesn’t wish to see her mourn like this. It is too poignant, too raw in this world of stone and silence. His rages are now less frequent, and even when anger consumes him, it is colder now. Though, he muses, by the way Adam has acted these past few days, that might change once more.

“I’ll show you to your room,” he says, and that is all he can offer the girl who could be his salvation. Belle stands and follows him as he gestures down the stairs, and Adam knows his brother takes this as a good sign. But Adam knows exhaustion and sees nothing in it. Belle is tired. So is he.

(He sees her crying in his mirror later, and while Adam knows it is probably because she is now cohabitating with a monster straight out of horror stories meant to scare children, he cannot help but remember how Belle’s eyes had filled with tears when she’d seen her father in a cell, how a swift, all but invisible smile had graced her lips when she’d found him. _Perhaps,_ Adam muses, looking once more at the miniature of Ederic he has saved after all these years. _Perhaps in a world where princes are turned into beasts and women as beautiful as Belle exist, there is room for the fantasy of a good father or two._ )

* * *

Years later, an exhausted Belle hands him his two children with a grin so wide it almost splits her face in two. After he counts each of their fingers and toes, kisses their downy heads, and cries for a few hours, he invites Maurice into his study.

“Maurice,” Adam tells him, pouring him a glass of red wine for his aged heart. “I want to assure you I will not treat Ederic and Roselle as Étienne treated me.”

“No,” the other man murmurs assuredly, grasping Adam’s hand in his own and squeezing it. It is at this moment Adam finally feels forgiven, feels absolved. “No, you will not.”

The two of them sit in silence as a corner cell in the highest tower in a castle far, far away from them sits empty, gathering dust.

**Author's Note:**

> Cheat Sheet:  
> Étienne is Adam's father, the king of the Arberessi Empire  
> Ederic is the former king of The Isle of Dorsusse, Eric and Ariel's kingdom, and father-figure to Adam.  
> Gardenia is the capital city of the Arberessi Empire  
> "Crown Prince Hercule-Adam, Duke of Chèver and Protector of the Northern Border" is Adam's full name and title  
> Bastion de la Saulogne is the name of the Beast's castle  
> The half-brother discussed is Lumiere (will be discussed in parent story, never fear!)  
> Prince Nicolau is the ruler The Principality of Dhurino


End file.
